How to Learn Game in One Week

This is a guest post I submitted to The Spearhead. Please comment on it there.

Every straight man alive in the 21st century needs to learn Game. This post will teach you all the Game you need to derive 80% of the potential benefits. Where you go from there is up to you.

First of all: What is Game?

Let’s start with what it’s not.

– Game is not shiny pedants and cheesy pickup lines
– Game is not solely useful for finding one-night stands in clubs
– Game is not being an asshole, lying to girls, acting “fake”
– Game is not irrelevant to men in long term relationships

I’m going to break down the study of Game into a three-step program that you can easily finish in a single week. If you’re anything less than perfectly satisfied with your sex life right now, this is my challenge to you: Ditch class, call in sick to work and give away your XBOX. I guarantee there is nothing else you can do that will have anywhere near as high of a return on your long-term happiness and success in life.

Step 1: Re-learn the basics of human psychology

Before you can attract women, you must understand them. Unfortunately, you have been taught many lies about the subtleties of the human mind, one of which is that men just can’t understand women. While this claim is widespread in our culture, the reality is that women are not at all hard to understand, for a man who has the proper tools.

This book will show you the true nature and origins of human thought, and hopefully erase decades of programming (more often implicit than stated) that human behaviour is environmentally determined and infinitely malleable.

Following Dawkins’ classic, familiarize yourself with a few other texts on what is really the only field of psychology worth studying today. Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal, David Buss’s Evolutionary Psychology Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, and Barkow, Tooby and Cosmides’ The Adapted Mind. Read at a good pace, skim a few pages if you need to, and try to finish that list in two days. (You might want to brew a pot of coffee.)

On day 3, move on to the most relevant sub-field of Ev Psych: Applications to sex and relationships. Read these two books: Sperm Wars by Robin Baker and The Evolution of Desire by David Buss.

At this point, hopefully you’ll have figured out that most of the conventional wisdom on sex and dating is bullshit. In order to cement your newfound distrust of conventional wisdom, pick up a copy of Stephen Pinker’s excellent The Blank Slate on day four and read that along with E.O. Wilson’s canonicalSociobiology. Finish the evening with a glass of wine and Robert Green’s The Art of Seduction, which is not an Ev Psych text but a fun and useful read nonetheless.

Step 2: Learn the Skills

So now you’ve got a solid understanding of the evolutionary origins of human behaviour. This will come in handy in almost every aspect of your life. For now though, we’ll just apply it to women. We’re going to move on to some actual seduction material.

There are literally millions of pages of forum posts and shitty e-books out there filled with pickup lines, routines, tactics, scams, cons, gambits, flim-flams, strategems and bamboozles. Most of them are worthless. Some are a mixed bag. A small slice, such as those listed above, are well worth reading.

But the ROI to learning more diminishes rapidly. Instead of getting bogged down in endless over-analyzing, read the above sources, pick up a copy of Bang for something written in the 21st century, and then stop reading and go live your life. We’ve got two days left and no more time for books.

Step 3: Apply the Skills

Finished with the reading lists? OK. Hold on to your dick, because now you’re actually going to have to put down the books and do something.

Exactly what that “something” is will depend on your goals, but here are a few examples.

If you’re a 21-year old virgin:

– Start friendly conversations with five different girls
– Create an online dating profile and send out ten emails
– Ask that female “friend” who you’re secretly in love with if she wants to go out on a date

– Go to a crowded bar, find the hottest girl there, and have sex with her.
– Have a threesome
– Find an amazing girl, fall hard for her, and teach her to be happy with your love without a need for monogamy

(Not such a tough guy anymore, are ya?)

The common theme among each of these exercises is that they push your comfort zone. They ask you to do things you haven’t done before, because you’re afraid to. It doesn’t matter how awesome or pathetic you are as a seducer, and as a man. Whatever level you’re at, Game will help you reach the next one.

So that’s the challenge. One week. If you’re up to it, keep me updated in the comments.